Date: Fri, 12 May 2006 19:38:04 +1000 From: Peter Jeremy <peterjeremy@optushome.com.au> To: Kevin Oberman <oberman@es.net> Cc: alpha@freebsd.org, current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: HEADSUP: Alpha support is being retired in 7.0 Message-ID: <20060512093804.GC714@turion.vk2pj.dyndns.org> In-Reply-To: <20060511223035.189F545053@ptavv.es.net> References: <200605111424.04935.jhb@freebsd.org> <20060511223035.189F545053@ptavv.es.net>
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On Thu, 2006-May-11 15:30:35 -0700, Kevin Oberman wrote: >exists and its creators (designers) are very sad at its demise. It was >an amazing design for its time and could have been a powerful force in >hardware with anything that resembled reasonable marketing. My sentiments as well. When I first used it (in late 1998), I thought the architecture looked weird but after using it for a while and reading more about the design decisions, I came to the conclusion that it was one of the better designed architectures around. There were a few warts (requiring software assistance to fully support IEEE FP but not supporting precise exceptions was the biggest IMHO) but DEC actually considered the likely impact of future changes to technology, rather than just band-aiding an existing architecture to meet the current technology limitations/requirements. -- Peter Jeremy
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